I was surprised to read in one of our national newspapers that a German family had sought asylum in the U.S. as their country forbids parents to home school their children. I was amazed .. yes I am somewhat naive .. that this occurs in Germany . I view the law as
unethical as there are children who benefit from being schooled at home . My children were not home schooled and I felt guilty at times leaving them to cope in largish classrooms with children who were demanding more than their fair share of teacher's attention . Of course there are positives that come from interacting with peers but this isn't aslways the case .
Any thoughts on this issue?

Homeschooling is illegal or mostly illegal in a number of countries – Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Greece, no doubt others. The usual reasons given for this are:

1. Children have a right to an education, and the state has a responsibility to see that they get it. It is difficult and/or excessively expensive to discharge this responsibility properly if children are homeschooled.

2. With the best will in the world, when children are homeschooled they are exposed to less of a variety of views and perspectives, and socialised with a much smaller range of people, and this is not in their interests. In particular, it impairs the quality of the education they receive.

It’s possible – I don’t know – that attitudes to homeschooling are connected to attitudes to public education. If the state provides only one type of school, based on one educational philosophy, the case for allowing people to opt out of school education is much stronger. Conversely if the state provides a diversity of school types and educational philosophies the case for allowing people to opt out may be weaker.

Yes Peregrinus there are valid points for not home schooling however many send their children to private schools where religious indoctrination is the norm ? Should there only be State schools ? I ' m pro choice and so long as there is supervision and support provided for parents who wish to home school there should be few problems .

I'm not saying that I endorse those arguments; just that those are the arguments put forward, and that Germany is not alone in finding them weighty. Personally, on the whole I probably lean towards the view that home-schooling should be permitted, and that this is important enough to warrant making resources avilable to inspect, etc, to ensure that homeschooled children are getting a reasonable education.

I don't think that avoiding "religious indoctrination" has much to do with it. Of the countries that forbid home schooling Germany, Greece, Spain and - I'm pretty sure - the Netherlands all provide public support to church schools of one kind or another (and usually of several kinds). Thus, whatever the motive for discouraging home schooling, it's unlikely to be that they are trying to prevent people from educating their children in a way onsistent with religious beliefs; they're pretty supportive of that. It's far more likely to be a concern about standards of education, or socialising opportunities for children - they may feel that homeschooling fosters isolation too easily.

catey wrote:

I was surprised to read in one of our national newspapers that a German family had sought asylum in the U.S. as their country forbids parents to home school their children. ... Any thoughts on this issue?

I'll apply the ethics model I borrowed from this site and see what happens.

Stakeholders and general impacts of home schooling. All these impacts possibly can be reduced if they are addressed. They can also be good or bad depending upon perspective.
- the child receiving home schooling: Schooling standard is more variable, fewer resources, less socialising, exposure to non-beneficial aspects can be reduced (bullying, drugs maybe), a better more caring environment, reduced exposure the "real world", less travel time, skill set may not align with current job market, cost of home schooling ....
- the parents who want to educate their child: The schooling can fit more closely to the parent's belief system, why do the parents prefer home schooling? ...
- the teachers (may be parents, or other tutors): qualification of the teachers, having a wide range of teachers so that not only one view is presented ...
- the Government, probably the Department of Education: who is ultimately responsible for the quality of the child's education? who can be sued if something goes wrong? The parents? Assessment of schooling and associated costs outside the school environment ...
- probably future employers: the student may have an education and skill set which is non-standard and perhaps not a good fit to existing job structures ...
- possibly tertiary educational institutes: the student may have difficulty in qualifying for a position at a tertiary education centre ...

... I could spend a couple of hours adding to this list of ethical considerations and still not capture them all.

So, as a result of the above modelling, the most important question I think is, Why do the parents prefer home schooling? If it is to attempt to make little Johnny or little Miss Jane fit the parent's ideal of their child, and create a reflection of themselves, then I suggest home schooling is not a good idea. If the parents wish to improve upon the current education system and have the resources and expertise to do so and act in the general best interest of the child, then home schooling is a good approach. I am cynical about religion being the justification of home schooling I might add.

Based on my observation of many parents I think home schooling should be the exception rather than the rule and be permitted only under strict Government guidelines. I definitely believe it should be allowed. But I have seen too many badly behaved parents at sports events, abusing their and other children plus the authorities to believe most parents have the skills or time to properly teach their children school work.

Do you know what the US home schooling approval criteria is?

i don't know what the stats are for home schooling but i know distance ed usually achieves much higher results than the general education system and i had a friend who was home schooled and she was two years above her grade. Having said that, this same friend did have limited social skills.

So academically i think they often benefit but socially they don't.

I don't see an ethical problem with banning home schooling, in fact i think it would probably be better to ban it, along with those fundamentalist religious schools. We want cohesion in our society.

arry



So you subscribe to "group think"? I hope you never find yourself as a minority in society, where your views can be banned as they aren't cohesive.

Many public schools in the U.S. are an umitigated disaster giving lifetime employement to union teachers. We all pay for these schools regardless.

Homeschooling should be an alternative.

If the government has an obligation to deliver an education then we need to do something about their failure. But, if you wish to have homeschooling then it's not particularly difficult for the state to meet their obligation by a review of the materials used and annual testing of the students.

Schools aren't the sole source of socializing. If you happen to be an outcast then the school isn't a source for socializing but a misery. In the last city in which I lived in the U.S., some homeschooled kids were very active in city-sponsored sports program. Socializing opportunities there. Some were very involved with a church. More socializing. Some parents who were homeschooling their kids organized activities for the kids as a group. More socializing.

My kids, I'm ashamed to say, went to public school but I did spend a lot of time with the kids countering things they were being taught. No, the Holocaust isn't a myth, Communism isn't the only compassionate system for a society, writing well with proper grammar and spelling really is important, and it's okay to disagree.

I find it unconscionable that a government would require attendance at a public school because they don't like what the parents are teaching.

Arry: "I don't see an ethical problem with banning home schooling, in fact i think it would probably be better to ban it, along with those fundamentalist religious schools. We want cohesion in our society." Terrifying. I don't want cohesion. I want a reasonable level of mutual respect.

Just to clarify:


Germany and the other countries mentioned don't require attendance at a public school; they just require attendance at a school. And the reason given usually has nothing to do with not liking what the parents are teac hing, but rather with the view that participating in a school community is an educationally beneficial experience which no child should be denied.

Deleted by Hunter

Hunter wrote:

I am cynical enough to believe the Australian school system exists mainly to teach/brainwash the kids to become consumers.

Also I believe the quality of education has been dumbed down over the last few decades to a point where a pupil can complete Year 12 and still be semi-illiterate. ...

I believe you have some valid points but only looking from the half empty bottle perspective. With proper parental guidance any school brainwashing can be easily defeated. My kids area bit cynical ... just like me. Maybe it is genetic Peregrinus? Also, while some kids can complete year 12 and still be semi-illiterate, we must also confess that some kids complete year 12 with amazing results, far beyond what was achievable when I was doing year 12. And there are a lot of kids in between.

The education system is an opportunity, some people take advantage of this opportunity, others don't. I guess life is an opportunity too and some people complete their life without benefit to anyone, whilst others do. For example Marie Curie, a very selfless woman.

[quote="Hunter"]I am cynical enough to believe the Australian school system exists mainly to teach/brainwash the kids to become consumers.[quote]
Although perhaps we shouldn't be surprised at that, given that the original purpose of public education was to turn out productive workers. All that is happening is that schools change to meet the developing needs of the economy. We live in a very materialist society; why should we expect our schools to reflect anything other than materialist values?

That's not to say, though, that turning out productive workers and avaricious consumers is necessarily completely inconsistent with fostering personal growth, and the development of children and, in time, young adults who are happy and healthy, emotionally and physically. If a school can help to acheive important things, we can perhaps put up with the economists' distortions.

Calm down kookaburra, no one's talking about banning views, just universal education. Like it or not, we exist within a society and within a society there is culture. One of the consequences of not having 'cohesion':

-An Islamic school a father used violence against his son on school premises. The teacher was told not to report it because it was part of the 'culture' and that if they did they could not complete their contract at that school.

The suicide bombers in London went to Islamic schools and stayed very much within their community from what I understand.

I am all for multiculturalism, but it being just that, multi. Not setting up your own culture and not assimilating to some extent with the dominant culture.

Having said this, most immigrants from all cultures assimilate very well. But I don't think 'cultural schools' such as islamic schools and extreme fundamentalist schools do much for social cohesion. Mulitculturalism must be a balance of give and take. Give some of your culture, take some of the culture you are now living in. To me, state schools are the perfect example of multiculturalism in action and religious schools are not. I think mono- cultural schools involve too much give your own culture and not enough, take the other culture. But that's a generalisation.

Not so. All four of them went to conventional state schools in the UK, and at least two went on to third-level colleges. Furthermore one of them was working in a state school (as a teaching assistant) at the time of the attacks. (He was, apparently, highly regarded by his colleagues for his teaching and pastoral skills.)

Nor did they “stay very much within their community”, at least when they were growing up. Apart from attending state schools, they socialised outside their community. At least one of them adopted an Anglo name (“Sid”), socialised primarily with white kids and lived an essentially westernised life. They seem to have been radicalised only in adult life. In fact, one of them only adopted Islam in his late teens.


It is. The nearest Catholic school to me is very diverse, including significant numbers of white Australian, Filipinos, Italians, Lebanese, etc. It draws its students from quite a wide catchment area. The nearest state school, by contrast, draws its students from the immediate neighbourhood and is overwhelmingly monocultural. Where I live, if you want your kids to experience diversity, you should be sending them to the Catholic school.

In general, substantial minorities tend to do well – as in, preserve their identity and grow in confidence, while learning to be comfortable about their place in wider society – in a multicultural school. But small minorities feel threatened, eclipsed, at risk of extinction. They feel community institutions – and schools are very significant in this regard – are essential to their surviving and prospering as a community, and attempts to deny them these are seen as attacks on them.

Thus, if people are insecure in their cultural identity, denying them their own schools is likely to make them feel threatened and victimised, which is the opposite of the outcome you want.

Maybe my conception of diversity is different, but I don't see 'diversity' as a school filled with people who all believe in the same religion.

Well, Catholic schools are not attended only by Catholics.

But leaving that aside, religious denomination is not the only, or even the main, characteristic by which the diversity or homogeneity of a community can be judged. If you have:

- School A, embracing students of Italian, Lebanese, Irish, Filipino, Indian, Croatian and Chinese backgrounds, many of them new migrants or first-generation Australians, and

- School B, embracing mostly long-settled Aussie students of Irish and Anglo-Saxon backgrounds,

it defies common sense to suggest that School B is the more diverse on the basis that it has more Presbyterian students than School A does.

Possibly, but I'm not even sure if this is a typical example. I know for a fact that most Aboriginal people attend state schools and am pretty sure there would be greater racial, religious, socio- economic, gender, parent education, level, disability diversity in state schools than private schools on average simply because there is no cost, gender, ability or religious barrier in most state schools.

Please be aware that this is a generalisation which is mostly true not always true. But that doesn't mean it isn't valid. It still points towards a trend and allows us to make the general statement that state schools, on the whole, have greater diversity within their student population than private schools.

Fair point.

But what I think we are moving towards is the truth that whether a school is a state school or a church school is not really the issue; the question is whether it is a diverse school or a homogenous school. And while it may be true that state schools, on the whole, tend to be more diverse in the student body than church schools, the fact that they are state schools is not really important.

There is another factor, though. If we want a diverse society, then we’re unlikely to achieve it by having entirely homogenous schools. The society which is sprinkled with Catholic schools, Jewish schools, Steiner schools, Montessori Schools, Schools where the medium of instruction is French, Ethical humanist schools, schools which focus on drama or the arts, vocational schools . . . is likely to be a more diverse society than one in which every school looks a lot like every other school. A diverse society needs a diversity of schools.

And please let's not forget that home schoolers are also a very diverse bunch of educators
The scenario where a federal government imposes uniform methods and curricula - and get it wrong - can result in a a lost generation . Perhaps maths and science are the only subjects that benefit students from a uniform approach and let's emphasise the word 'perhaps'.

catey: "Perhaps maths and science are the only subjects that benefit students from a uniform approach and let's emphasise the word 'perhaps'."

I'm not sure what is meant by a uniform approach but I don't see any significant problem with teaching basic writing, spelling, history, civics, biology, or most academic classes with a uniform approach.